Gus and Janice Bader invest in tomorrow's leaders

Lifelong educators Gus ’68 and Janice ’68, M’79 Bader are investing in the leaders of tomorrow through a scholarship fund for Rowan University education students. In July 2010, the couple established the Gus and Janice Bader Education Scholarship Fund.

The couple’s decision to create a scholarship for deserving students in the College of Education was based on their desire to help aspiring educators. The annual awards are intended to benefit junior or senior students majoring in elementary or early childhood education, with priority given to students from Vineland or Pennsville.

Gus and Janice met while students at then-Glassboro State College. Both fondly recall their time at GSC, especially the caring professors and administrators. The couple met—quite literally—by accident. Janice was in an accident when a woman came through a stop street. Gus attended to her until the ambulance got there and asked her out at the hospital. The rest is history.

Together, the two have put in 72 years of service as educators—and Janice is not finished yet.

After college, Gus spent four years in the U.S. Air Force as an instructor. While in pursuit of his master’s degree in Environmental Education he was hired as an elementary teacher in the Pennsville Public School District, where he taught third and fourth grade for 27 years before retiring in 2000. He then substituted in Pennsville for five years before finally retiring for good in 2005.

After graduation, Janice spent one year as a sixth grade teacher in the Randolphville School in Piscataway, NJ, and then taught sixth through eighth grades in the Northeast Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas. She then was a teacher/supervisor for 12 years in the Vineland Public Schools. She was principal at the Dr. William Mennies School in Vineland from 1985 until her retirement in 2002. Since her retirement, Janice has been a mentor for the NJ Leaders to Leaders program and continues to substitute as a principal in Vineland.

Both Gus and Janice value education and see the value of education saying, “Glassboro State College provided us with a lifetime’s worth of education, professionalism and social preparedness. We would like to give some of that back to present day students with the hope that they will avail themselves of the same benefits we were fortunate to receive—benefits which we know are still provided at Rowan University.”